NEW YORK—If I’d have asked you to name a few U.S. players who might pull off surprising wins at the 2012 U.S. Open, would you have singled out Bradley Klahn. . . Mallory Burdette. . . or even Brian Baker, the most likely to succeed among unseeded Americans at this event?
Highly unlikely. And that’s good news for the domestic game. Young Americans may not be an identifiable force in Grand Slam tennis as the Spanish or French, but the game is on a boil—and something more useful than hot air is likely to be the end product.
We won’t get carried away here. The first round of any major almost always produces an unsung native hero or two. Patriotic inspiration (or is it merely the familiar surroundings?) is part of it. But very few of those players are capable of surviving the 24-hour news cycle.
It’s also worth remembering that direct acceptance into a main draw is a well-earned “lifetime achievement” award for seasoned players; leapfrogging into the brackets by virtue of a wild card, the way so many native players do at Grand Slam events, is a little like jumping a queue. So a first-round win by a wild card competitor isn’t always built on the most solid foundation. But the only thing that matters once the serves and forehands start flying is the score.
It was encouraging to see American players go 7-1 yesterday, that only loss easily ignored because the players were both from the U.S. (Steve Johnson, the reigning NCAA singles champion and ATP rookie, took down Rajeev Ram in three neat sets). The winners were: John Isner (the No. 9 seed), Ryan Harrison, Baker, Johnson, Klahn, Varvara Lepchenko, and Burdette.
The best wins in this group were those of Klahn and Burdette. The former, a 23-year-old, 6’3” lefthander, earned his way into the main draw through qualifying, and on Court 17 yesterday knocked out Jurgen Melzer, the former Top 10 player, 6-4 in the fifth.
Burdette’s wild card didn’t just arrive as a gift in the mail either, at least not entirely. She beat out a host of her fellow Americans by accumulating the best results on the USTA minor-league circuit. Like the more familiar Lepchenko (a direct acceptance entry and No. 31 seed), Burdette’s win over Lucie Hradecka was a second-round triumph.
After his own tidy three-set win over Benjamin Becker, Harrison pointed out that the players he grew up competing against were Klahn, Johnson and Rhyne Williams (who lost in the first round to Andy Roddick on Tuesday). He said he knows that Klahn and Johnson work “really hard” and hopes that this first-round rising tide lifts all boats. “I think once one of them has a good win, it becomes a realistic thing for everybody. You start playing more composed and more under control, not thinking that these guys are unbeatable.”
Okay, enough with the celebration. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and see what chance our seven winners of yesterday have in their upcoming matches.
Isner will meet Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, who advanced when Mikhail Kukushkin retired early in their first-round match. Isner and Nieminen met in this tournament way back in 2007 when Isner was still green, and he still won in four sets (the first three were tiebreakers). Isner won the other two matches they played as well, both on hard courts. Since then, Isner has only gotten better and Nieminen has only gotten older.
Harrison has the misfortune of having to meet former champion and No. 7 seed Juan Martin del Potro, who’s beginning to look like he could duplicate his run to the title here in 2009. But Harrison has always been eager to put on big-boy pants, and while he has yet to make the third round of a major, he’s had enough close calls and tough breaks to understand his mission and handle it with poise.
Baker had a little trouble adapting to the hard courts after that inspired summer run that carried right through Wimbledon. Although he’s struggled in recent weeks, he looked solid in his 3-4-2 win over Jan Hajek. He’s pretty well prepped for a match-up with No. 8 seed Janko Tisparevic (who had to come back from a two sets-to-none deficit to beat French wild card Guillaume Rufin). I think Baker’s game matches up well with Tipsarevic’s; this one is the upset special.
Johnson meets spectacularly talented but somewhat perverse and unstable Ernests Gulbis, who also recovered from losing the first two sets to win in five (against Tommy Haas) yesterday. Gulbis has lost some weight, worked on his forehand, and he showed uncharacteristic determination and focus in his match with Haas. This is a very tough assignment for the NCAA champion.
Klahn gets No. 13 seed Richard Gasquet, who’s been playing well but is always vulnerable. If the tall American can work some of that southpaw juju and get Gasquet frustrated, who knows?
Lepchenko won her second-rounder convincingly—after a titanic battle and narrow first-round escape against France’s Mathilde Johansson. She’ll play defending champ and No. 7 seed Sam Stosur, which is not as daunting a match-up as it may sound, when you consider how inconsistent the Aussie has been this year. She’s playing well, though, so it’s tempting but impossible to call the upset.
Burdette faces No. 3 seed Maria Sharapova, who’s lost just five games so far. Burdette likes to attack, though, and that’s just the kind of player who might be able to pressure and ultimately unnerve Sharapova, pushing her over the line from “going for it” to “going for too much.” Burdette’s chance may be slim, but it’s better than if she were a cookie-cutter baseliner.